Scientific Committee

Aim

The Scientific Committee (SC) acts as an advisory committee to EFOMP Council.The basic objective of the EFOMP SC is the furtherance of the science of medical physics and its related fields of research and clinical applications. In order to do so, the SC promotes the operation of Working Groups for specific topics with wider interest among medical physicists. WGs have to be sponsored by NMOs in order to recruit experienced medical physicists from different countries. Moreover SC advises the possibility of creating Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in order to follow up topics and organizations of particular interest for medical physicists (e.g.: Imaging Informatics, Standard development, biomedical engineering).The SC participates in the production of documentation relating to good practice and the advancement of medical physics competence in Europe.The SC also encourages NMOs in facilitating and organizing meetings and workshops. Those events are important networking forums to exchange information and knowledge on the relevant topics in medical physics.

Members

Interests

The field of medical physics is continuously evolving due to technological and informatics development, and multiprofessionality. The role of the Scientific Committee is to stay aware of that transformation and to help colleagues in Europe to benefit from the new methods that are studied, developed and brought into clinical practice.

Specific areas of interest include (as mentioned in the Terms of Reference):

Encouraging exchange and dissemination of scientific information on medical physics between countries.

Organising the biennial European Congress of Medical Physics in collaboration with the CP and ET committees.

Assisting with the organisation of scientific workshops and sessions at other major European meetings (e.g. ECR, EANM, ESTRO, ESMRMB, IAEA, WHO, EUSOMII etc).

Additionally, in cooperation with EFOMP Education and Training (ET) Committee:

Advising NMOs and other bodies on appropriate scientific standards and good practice in medical physics.

Fostering research and development in medical physics.

A number of Working Groups (WG) and Special Interest Groups (SIG) operate under the umbrella of the SC. The SC may co-opt colleagues and experts when it is needed and seen appropriate in order to strengthen the effectiveness of the groups.

Working Groups

1. “Revision of EFOMP PS14 - Safety of MRI”. The WG will operate from June 2019 to June 2020.
The rationale of the WG is to outline the development of a Safety Management System for MRI units. The Policy Statement can help eliminate or at least minimize accidents or incidents in the magnetic resonance environment and is recommended as a step towards harmonisation of safety of workers, patients, and the general public regarding the use of magnetic resonance imaging systems in diagnostic and interventional procedures.

2. “Breast Tomosynthesis QC Protocol”. The WG will operate from April 2019 to March 2021.
The rationale of the WG is to develop a QC protocol for DBT systems. It is envisioned that this protocol could prevent the proliferation of other testing protocols with diverse methods of measurement and limiting values. The DBT QC protocol should incorporate the new universal breast dosimetry model which is in development by a joint AAPM-EFOMP WG. Additionally, task-based image quality methods are planned to be included into practical QC procedures by the WG.

3. “Artificial Intelligence (AI)”. The WG will operate from Jun 2019 to Apr 2021.
The rationale of the WG: Big data and deep learning will profoundly change various areas of professions and research in the future. This will also happen in medicine and medical imaging in particular. Quantitative aspects of data validation, QC and system modelling for the future AI methods are positioned firmly in the field of Medical Physics profession. It is our interest to ensure that our professional education, continuous training and competence will follow this significant global development.

4. “Angiographic and fluoroscopic systems - QC protocol”. The WG will operate under Scientific Committee from Jun 2019 to Jun 2021.
The rationale of the WG: There is lack of an harmonized procedure to test angiographic and fluorosopic equipment. Some of the tests proposed still used are out-of-date and meaningless. Manufacturers are organizing a joint effort to produce an IEC standard to test the equipment. It is envisioned that this protocol could prevent the proliferation of other testing protocols with diverse methods of measurement and limiting values. New strategies to evaluate clinical image quality will be investigated and eventually included in the protocol.

Related Attachments

Contact

Yolanda Prezado

Dr. Yolanda Prezado is the founder and responsible of the interdisciplinary team “New Approaches in Radiotherapy (NARA)” based at the Laboratory Imaging and Modelling in Neurobiology and Cancerology (National Scientific Research Center- CNRS, Orsay, France). The main research avenue of the team NARA is the conception and development of innovative methods based on the use of the spatial fractionation of the dose.

Yolanda Prezado is a board certified medical physicist (Spain). She has been developing her research in radiotherapy, first at Hospital Universitario de Salamanca (Spain), then at the Biomedical Beamline of the European Synchrotron Radiation facility (Grenoble, France) and at CNRS since 2011. Her research interests include dose calculations (Monte Carlo simulations), small field dosimetry and radiobiology.

She has acted as coordinator of the radiotherapy cluster of the CNRS research network Mi2b (“Modélisation et instrumentation pour l’Imagerie Biomédicale”) and elected as member of the counsel of the Medical Physics Group of the Spanish Society of Physics.

Mika Kortesniemi

Mika Kortesniemi works as the Chief Physicist and Adjunct Professor in the HUS Medical Imaging Center, University of Helsinki, Finland. His professional focus is on the quality assurance, dosimetry, optimisation and radiation protection in x-ray modalities, especially the evolving multi-slice CT technology. The research work is primarily related on radiological optimisation, currently emphasizing the use of anthropomorphic phantoms and Monte Carlo simulations. Dr Kortesniemi is coordinator of the PIQON (pediatric image quality and organ dose optimisation) research group within the MATRENA doctoral programme in the University of Helsinki, Department of Physics, Finland. In addition to his primary position in HUS Medical Imaging Center, Dr Kortesniemi is also involved in IAEA missions and quality audits in radiology.